Assistant Senior Review

Provide year end audit services for SMEs & listed companies. We work at the client site and perform testing procedures to gain assurance over the figures within the client's accounts prior to them being published to companies house. The work requires substantive audit procedures as well as the testing of controls.

I have learnt both on the job and off the job skills via our Kaplan college tuition. I have learnt new skills on how to perform an audit using data analytics and have learned general audit procedures such as sampling and determining errors. I have also learned new and valuable excel skills.

I gain enjoyment through the client interactions which I have and the building of client relationships. I am also grateful for being put through a professional qualification. The day to day audit work can be dry from time to time, and the hours can become unreasonable, especially during busy season

I feel valued by some members of staff at EY and less so by others. It comes down to whether the member of staff is grateful for the work you have performed and whether they decide to reach out from time to time, even away from work. Given i'm in a smaller regional office, i'm a larger part of the team here.

It's well organised with clear procedures for attending college and also the requirement to perform quarterly catch ups with my counsellor to monitor my progress on the programme. There are also clear channels to go through If I were to have any issues or needed further support. There's also regular communications from the apprenticeship team

Kaplan are very supportive as they have dedicated helplines and live chats for both academic queries and non-academic queries. The tutors are helpful in class and very accessible over phone or email. Their online resources are very helpful. They also provide regular commincations around the course logistics and dates to attend.

As above in the organised/structured question, there's lots of support available through the apprenticeship team, counsellor, other superiors and peers. We also have dedicated portals to log our off the job learning and help pages on the EY internal site. I can also reach out to an individual learning mentor for larger issues.

I am currently able to meet all living costs, however I am in the process of purchasing a home and therefore the cost of living will increase and I feel the salary I am currently on won't support this cost effectively. It does increase substantially year on year however.

There are social events held at least every quarter. We also have office volunteering days which we can charge time to for 2 days per year. There are a lack of sports clubs and other social clubs due to the small size of the office. There are also informal socials outside of work

No

There are no vacancies outside of audit in the Liverpool office due to it's small size. I'd advise going to a firm which offers corporate finance roles within Liverpool for a more interesting day to day experience. If based in Manchester, I would recommend EY as they have this capacity

To speak clearly and concisely, and to not worry about grades as EY no longer assess these in the application criteria. I'd reach out to the allocated buddy as soon as possible to ensure they know what to expect on day 1. Just be yourself and ask questions often.